Prelude
by Grac3
Summary: Part one of the Loki and the Doctor series. In the middle of the night, Loki is visited by a time traveller who tells him that they will meet several times throughout the prince's life, but never in the right order. Pre-Thor / Post-The Name of the Doctor.


**A.N.:** This is the first part of a new series that I'm going to be working on, called 'Loki and the Doctor' (imaginative, I know). It will have ten parts, including this one, and has a trailer called Not the First which has already been posted (but it's not necessary to read that). The stories will follow Loki's personal timeline, but once all of the stories have been posted, I will put a list of the stories as they are in the Doctor's personal timeline, so if you want, you can read through the events as the Doctor experiences them as well as the order in which Loki experiences them.

**Warning:** Minor spoilers for Into the Dalek

**Series summary:** When he was a child, Loki got a visit from a man who told him that he was a time traveller, and that they would meet many times throughout the prince's life; but he wouldn't always look the same, nor hold the same company. And, many times throughout the prince's life, that's exactly what happened.

**Disclaimer: Don't own Doctor Who or Thor**

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><p>Loki knew that there was no reason for him to be wary. Ever since he had been given his own room in the palace, two guards had been stationed at either end of the corridor beyond his door to make sure that no one could get near to him while he slept. Most nights, he slept soundly in the knowledge that the guards would do away with anyone that tried to harm him during the hours that darkness covered the skies of Asgard.<p>

Tonight, however…

There was nothing really different about that night: the door to his room was closed, his books were lined up neatly in a logical order on the shelf, and he was tucked in beneath his green sheet, blanketed by both the material and the darkness filling the room.

Yet he still couldn't seem to shake off the feeling that _something_ was going to happen tonight; something that he should stay awake for.

And, sure enough, just as he was beginning to doubt the validity of his paranoid thoughts, he heard voices outside of his room: voices that he didn't recognise.

"And you're sure this is the right door?" One of the voices – which belonged to a woman – asked. "Cause the last time you said a door was the right door and it turned out to be the wrong door, I ended up on stage at a Slitheen business conference dressed as an Edwardian lady of the night."

The comment was dismissed with a scoff. "How long are you going to hold that over my head?" The second voice was decidedly male. The two people sounded as though they were about the same age, though – other than 'young' – Loki couldn't tell what age that was.

"And yes," the second voice continued, "I'm sure this is the right door. There wouldn't have been guards at the ends of the corridors if it wasn't."

Loki sat up at the second voice's words, the sheet falling from where it was resting under his chin to his lap; he quickly grabbed it again, holding it up and balling it in his hands. His gaze was fixed fearfully at the door to his bedroom, barely distinguishable from the wall as the entire panel was shrouded in shadows.

Both of the princes' doors had been as heavy as those of the throne room – as heavy as those of the King and Queen's room – but neither he nor his brother had ever had any trouble getting in and out of their rooms by themselves. After all, Thor had enough brute strength to open any door that wasn't magically reinforced, and Loki's magical talent had been apparent since his birth, so he could simply enchant a door to open for him.

Thus, the door _should_ have been impenetrable for anyone who was not related to Odin in some way: but Loki found himself watching in horror as a bright blue light shone through the keyhole – accompanied with a strange buzzing sound – and there was the distinctive _click_ of the lock being released.

The prince calculated that he had approximately three seconds to hide before he was discovered by the intruders – who had somehow managed to get through what should have been a steadfast door – but that wasn't going to be enough time for him to get to the wardrobe without his escape being visible.

So, as the door creaked open and the darkness inside the room seemed to intensify as the light from the torches mounted on the walls of the corridor outside flooded in through the now open doorway, Loki did the only thing that he could think to do: he reached for his magic, and transformed.

He watched, in his disguise, as the two figures that he had heard conversing – or perhaps 'arguing' was a more accurate description – pushed open the door and quietly closed it behind them. It was, as he had expected, a man and a woman – but they were wearing strange clothing, and he could tell instantly that they were certainly not of Asgard.

The man was tall and lanky, with floppy hair that he had to brush off of his face twice before he even noticed the figure on the bed; while the woman was considerably shorter, with long, brown hair flowing from her head.

"Where is he?" the woman whispered, her voice a hiss as she looked around the room before turning back to her companion with a quizzical look on her face.

"This time of night? He'll be in bed," the man parried quickly, and Loki noted that he wasn't trying nearly as hard to keep his voice down as the woman was.

Almost as if what had been said was an instruction of some sort, the woman strode confidently over to the bed upon which Loki was now sitting; he tried to remain calm, in character with his disguise.

He almost jumped at the screech that she let out when her eyes fell upon him as she reached his bedside, her hands flying to her mouth as if she could somehow catch the sound before it got too far into the atmosphere and shove it back from whence it came. She took a half-step back from the bed, before she slowly lowered her hands and leaned forward slightly, as though a closer inspection might change what she could see.

"What? What is it?" the man asked urgently, rushing to the woman's side.

The woman, who now seemed to have recovered from her initial shock, stood up fully and turned to the man with her hands on her hips and an annoyed expression on her face.

"A pig?" she asked, with a bite to her tone. "You promised me a prince, and you give me a pig." She gestured to Loki in his disguised form, still facing the man.

Even in the dark, Loki could see the warm smile that lit up the man's face as his own eyes fell upon the pig in the bed.

"This is the prince I promised you, Clara; he's just hiding. Very cleverly, as well. Aren't you, Loki?"

Loki froze at the mention of his name. It was not uncommon for people to know his name – after all, everyone on Asgard knew the names of the members of the royal family – but these two were so obviously from _somewhere else_, and he had to question how they could possibly know so much. The man seemed to be expecting a response from him, but Loki remained firmly silent.

"That's okay, I get it," the man conceded, beginning to gesticulate. "Two people break into your bedroom in the middle of the night – which shouldn't even be possible – they look weird, they sound weird, and they know your name when you don't know theirs."

The man suddenly walked off, heading for the candle torches that lined the walls of Loki's bedroom. "Well, we can sort that out: I'm the Doctor, this is Clara-" he gestured to the woman, who was still standing by Loki's bedside- "and… there."

Flames burst from the tips of the torches as the man – the Doctor – followed them around the room lighting them all. When he was done, he turned back to Loki, sat in his bed as a pig, and clapped his hands together.

"Isn't that better?" he grinned.

Loki looked from one of them to the other and back again, his gaze resting on the mysterious Doctor. He wondered if he had enough magical ability to at least defend himself if he needed to, and reasoned that he could probably risk changing back into his usual form – for pigs couldn't speak, let alone ask questions, and he needed to ask questions.

Seamlessly, he switched back into his human form, and the smile on the Doctor's face grew even further – though it still didn't seem threatening in any way.

"You're a shape-shifter," the Doctor smiled, straightening himself up to his full height. "So am I."

Loki found himself confused at the Doctor's statement, so he decided to take as much control of the situation as he could.

"Why are you here?" he asked as confidently as he could.

"Yeah, why _are _we here?" Clara agreed, and Loki thought it strange that the Doctor wouldn't tell the person with whom he was breaking into the bedroom of a prince of Asgard just why they were breaking into the bedroom of a prince of Asgard.

"Because we've met before," the Doctor answered, and it was clear that – as he began to move towards the foot of Loki's bed, with his eyes still fixed on its occupant – that he was addressing the prince.

Loki was going to retaliate in the negative: no, they hadn't met before – but then Loki remembered that the Doctor had said that he was a shape-shifter as well, so it was perfectly possible that they _had_ met before, and that the Doctor had simply looked different.

That still didn't explain their clothes, though.

The Doctor walked forward and sat on the end of Loki's bed, twisting himself around so that he was still facing the prince.

"Loki, I'm going to tell you something that you probably won't believe, but that you must understand is absolutely true."

Loki drew his feet closer to him under the sheet, so that his knees were almost touching his chin. He gulped slightly before he replied.

"And what's that?"

The corner of the Doctor's lips quirked upwards in a small smirk, as though he considered himself to have won some kind of personal victory in getting Loki to agree to hear him out.

"You have been taught that there are Nine Realms, yes?" the Doctor began, and Loki answered with a nod. "That's not true. There are many worlds out there, many hundreds and thousands of worlds, and I came from a planet called Gallifrey."

A flash of something – some strong kind of sadness – shot through the Doctor's eyes at the mention of the name of his home planet, but it was so brief that the prince almost believed himself to have imagined it.

"I am what is known as a Time Lord," the Doctor continued, "and I have a big, blue box that can travel in time and space."

Loki realised that the Doctor had been right when he had said that it was unlikely that Loki was going to believe what he had to say. Loki had heard tales of people travelling between realms – and Odin himself had been to both Midgard and Jötunheim – but travel in time? Surely such a thing was impossible.

"Why are you telling me this?" Loki asked, and the Doctor let out a small, humoured huff.

"Because I have met you many times before, Loki Odinson; but you have not yet met me."

Loki could understand the principle of what the Doctor was telling him – particularly in light of his revelation about time travel (which the prince was still having trouble believing) – but he just couldn't understand that this man had met before, in his future.

"That doesn't answer my question," Loki told the Doctor in a voice that was far hollower than he had originally intended. His throat felt dry at the sudden revelation, and he was finding it difficult to speak.

"Hardly anyone ever calls me out on that," the Doctor responded, sounding impressed as a grin began to form on his face.

"The point is," he continued, reaching into the inside pocket of his strange outer-garment, "I can shape-shift just like you can. But I can't choose what I look like when I change form, and I can't control when it happens. It only happens when I die, and after I change, I still have the appearance of a man, but a different man. Do you follow?"

Loki scoffed at the question, his legs relaxing and sagging slightly so that they sat more comfortably on the bed. No one ever asked him if he followed something, or if he understood something: it had been widely accepted since the princes were infants that, between the two of them, Thor was the brawn and Loki was _definitely_ the brain.

The Doctor seemed to understand what the noise meant, for he smiled and continued.

"I won't always look the same when you see me, and sometimes you'll see a version of me that's earlier in my personal timeline than a version you've seen before. And even when I look the same, there might have been meetings that you've had with me that I haven't had with you yet, so you can't tell me about anything that's happened between us unless I say so."

Loki nodded slowly, his gaze fixed on the Doctor's hand and what it was that he held between his fingers that he had retrieved from his pocket.

The direction of the prince's gaze did not go unnoticed by the Doctor, who held out his hand. Held between his fingers was a pile of pictures, all of different faces.

"These are the people you will meet over the years," the Doctor explained, "in the order that they occur in my personal timeline. Some of them are versions of me, but some of them are people who travel with me. Like Clara." The Doctor nodded to Clara.

"I'm his carer," Clara informed Loki, though the prince noted that the Doctor didn't seem all too happy with that description.

"Why do you need so many different people to travel with you?" Loki asked. "Why not keep the same people with you?"

A sad look crossed the Doctor's face, and Loki wondered if he had asked the wrong question.

"Most of my companions are from Earth. Or Midgard, as you would call it. Surely you know of how their lives on Earth are far more limited than your own?"

Loki sensed Clara shift uncomfortably next to him. He understood exactly that to which the Doctor was referring. He had been taught of Midgard in his lessons, and of the mortals who lived there. It seemed strange to him that the Æsir chose to refer to humans as such, when it implied that they themselves were somehow immune to death – which wasn't true in the slightest.

"Time Lords live longer than humans," the Doctor continued. "Much longer, in fact. I am over a thousand years old, while Clara hasn't reached thirty."

"So all of your…" Loki searched for the right word that he could use, that would accurately describe what the people who travelled with the Doctor were to the Doctor- "companions eventually grow old and die on you?"

"Oh, no," the Doctor protested. "Most of them leave me either because they want to, or… because they're forced to in some way. A few of them have died, yes, but never of old age. At least, not while travelling with me."

There was a heavy silence that followed the Doctor's words, as the Time Lord stared into space, seemingly lost in his thoughts.

After a moment or so, however, the Doctor blinked and snapped out of his reverie, painting a smile on his face with such ease that Loki knew instantly that his man had known far deeper sorrow than he ever hoped to encounter himself.

"Anyway, the pictures." The Doctor plucked the first picture off of the pile and placed it on the bed before Loki. The prince had to lower his legs so that he was sitting cross-legged so that he could see it.

The picture was of what Loki would describe as an old man – surely he looked older than the Doctor sat before him, with his wrinkled but smiling face and his curly, white hair.

"That's me," the Doctor explained, "from a long time ago. You'll meet him-" the Doctor placed the next photo, of a young woman with short, blonde hair, next to the first –"with her. Jo Grant."

And so the process continued, with pictures of both the Doctor and his various companions. The second pair was of a man with a large, toothy grin and an even larger bush of curly, brown hair, accompanied with an intelligent-looking woman with bright eyes and long, brown hair.

Next was a younger man, with curly brown locks that stopped at his shoulders.

"I was travelling alone at that point," the Doctor explained, before moving on.

That picture was followed by a man with short, cropped hair and a goofy grin, who the Doctor told him travelled with a blonde woman who seemed to be the youngest of them all and a man who looked as though he would be on some form of Midgardian advertising.

"Those are the only faces of mine that you will see," the Doctor explained, indicating to the first, third, fifth and sixth photos, "apart from this one-" he pointed at his own face- "but there are three other companions that you will meet."

The Doctor placed the next three pictures down: the first, of a woman with long, fiery red hair; the second, of a man who held the same almost sorrowful look in his deep, green eyes as the Doctor did; and the third of a woman with a wild mane of curly hair that seemed to rival the second of the Doctor's faces that Loki had been shown.

"Amy, Rory, and River," the Doctor informed him, pointing to each of the pictures in turn.

Loki studied the pictures silently, leaning over carefully so as not to risk jogging them too much, and tried to remember the various names that the Doctor had told him. When he had finished, he sat back up straight, and looked the Doctor in the eye.

"Why should I believe you?" he asked, crossing his arms and lifting an eyebrow.

"You don't have to," the Doctor conceded, picking up the pictures again and replacing them into his pocket, "but it's in your best interest."

"How so?" Loki queried, unfolding his arms slowly as a wary feeling rose up within him. The Doctor reached into the inside pocket on the other side of his outer-garment, pulling out a small piece of parchment and a strange implement that looked nothing like a quill, but with which he began to write nonetheless.

"You're not going to see me for a few years, and when you do, I'll look completely different," the Doctor explained as he scribbled on the piece of paper. "But you have to keep this safe until then and, when you see me, you have to give me this."

The Doctor handed the piece of parchment over to Loki. What the Doctor had written seemed to be complete nonsense: a random combination of letters and numbers that followed no pattern that the prince could discern.

"What is this?" Loki asked, looking up from the parchment to the Time Lord.

"It's a set of coordinates," the Doctor explained, and Loki understood a little more; he had been taught about those in his navigation lessons.

"Where do they lead to?" the prince asked, but the Doctor only smiled, and Loki knew that he wasn't going to get an answer.

"You have to keep those very safe, Loki. One day, they'll save your life."

Loki didn't quite understand what the Doctor meant by that, but he folded up the parchment neatly all the same and tucked it into the drawer of his bedside table. Once he pushed the drawer closed once more, he sat up straight and looked back over at the Doctor.

"What now?" the prince asked.

"Now," the Doctor began enthusiastically, pushing himself to his feet, "we take our leave."

"What, that's it?" Clara snapped. "I thought we were gonna, you know… do stuff."

The Doctor looked over at Clara with an exasperated look on his face. "We are; this was a detour."

Clara let out a huff of breath through her nostrils, before turning to Loki with a smile that seemed too wide. "Good luck with him." She turned swiftly on her heel and left the room, no doubt waiting for the Doctor on the other side.

The Doctor sighed, but shot Loki a warm smile all the same.

"You'll see me around, Loki," he bid, lifting his hand in a brief wave before he went around the room extinguishing torches. "Listen out for my big, blue box," the Time Lord added, before he left the room – that was now dark again – and closed the door behind him.

Loki sat there for a few moments, trying to work out whether he was actually awake or not.

He wrenched the drawer of his bedside table open, and saw that the piece of folded-up parchment was, indeed, there – as real as he was.

Closing the drawer softly once more, he went to lay back down to go to sleep – when he suddenly heard a strange wheezing sound coming from outside.

Confused, he pushed the sheet off of him and padded over to the window, lifting the curtain out of the way and looking out across Asgard.

Near to the palace, he could see something – a big, blue box – that hadn't been there the last time he had looked out of his window. But it was disappearing slowly as the wheezing intensified; it would fade away and then return, but each return would have it more transparent than the last.

Until the box faded away completely without returning, and the wheezing finally stopped.

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><p><strong>A.N.2:<strong> I'm not entirely sure why I wrote Clara the way that I wrote her in this story...

**UPDATE 14/10/14:** Part two of the Loki and the Doctor series, The Sword in the Stone, is up now.


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